by tashmcgill | Apr 28, 2020 | Leadership, Poems, Prayers
It’s Day 35 of Covid-19 lockdown for me and while usually I would make no attempt to timestamp these types of offerings to the universe; I began to notice a few weeks ago that more and more of my friends around the world were beginning to report of sleeplessness. Once reliable patterns of rest and slumber and recovery becoming unreliable in the face of a strange new unknown threat. A symptom for the symptomless, but nonetheless impacted victims of Covid-19.
So amongst the liturgies I have written for this Covid -19 time, I wrote a liturgy for sleeplessness. I wrote it first on hearing the sigh of a dear friend sleepless in the dark skies of New York. I read it to myself watching the dawn rise after another sleepless night. It does not promise to cure your insomnia, but I hope it will comfort you and keep you company in the small dark hours.
This is my gift to you. May you find rest.
A Liturgy for Sleeplessness
At the counting of the hours
and as the ‘un’s’ collect before my eyes
The undone, unsaid and unfinished things in my body
The work of my hands
The unsolved puzzles of my day
May there be rest in knowing there is always something undone that we might sleep and rise tomorrow
The unfelt, unheard and unspoken things that haunt
Swirling in the soft, shadowy edge of the mind
Not enough to wake us but enough to jostle us from deepest slumber
Let my slumber be the safe and soft space for all that is un-
To become part of tomorrow, safe for tonight without needing my concern, my worry, my energy.
For today, I have given all portions and allotments that belonged to it.
But for the catchment of hours left in the night before dawn, grant me abundant mercy as I wander long hours in the small darkness, awake or dreaming.
Give me strength for the dawn. Satisfy even the curiosity of the deep night I find myself aware of.
May the alchemy of body and mind, mystery of eyes responding to light and noise relent — to the tonic of sleep; the easy weighted fall of eyelids, the slowing rhythm of breath.
I lay down into the rhythm of the hours and surrender to them, even the most unwilling parts of me. Grant me mercy in slumber and keep me there.
I offer my evening prayer to the morning and ask for the unknown knitting together of fibres, for entering the healing of deep rest.
For the peace and end of the day, done and undone, and for sleep.
Pax.
by tashmcgill | May 29, 2015 | Church, Leadership, Youth Work
To my long-time love;
It has been a long time since I seriously considered calling it quits on our relationship. Even though I no longer depend on you, the Church, to tell me how to live, or to provide connection with other people of faith—I’ve stuck to the belief that somehow, we are better together than we are apart.
I am facing a choice because I don’t know if you are good for me anymore. The best way I can describe it is being ‘unequally yoked’. It reminds me of advice you gave when I was a teenager; warning me about my relationship with people who didn’t share the same faith or convictions.
Yes, I do think we are unequally yoked and it’s not me, it’s you. Monday to Saturday I have been listening to the edges of society where God’s Spirit is hovering. I feel myself being stretched and enlarged until Sunday, when I have to squeeze back into the shape and size you want me.
I never thought it would be possible, but maybe I’ve outgrown the shape you made for me. I’m bigger than you can handle, in so many ways.
Embracing the sacred and divine Feminine
I’m tired of broken promises and false hopes of shaping the future. I am a capable, intelligent, strategic and compassionate communicator and a visionary for the Church. Stop offering lip service to honouring and empowering women to lead and have a voice within your walls. You don’t need to tell us you believe in women, just let us lead not because of our womanhood but without regard for it.
We’ve known each other too long for you not to trust me now. When I say to want to contribute, don’t make me jump through hoops and knock on doors. If you don’t trust me, say it straight and let me move on. The power of my sex won’t change.
Embrace me, a reflection of the sacred Feminine in the real world—intelligent, gifted, passionate and willing. Embrace me or say no. Your ‘no’ won’t ruin me as much as chasing your ‘yes’ has.
Staking a claim for the significance of every human being
The political and sociological debates you engage with around LGBTQ issues let me know you’re thinking and talking about it.
I want you to start turning from conversation to action. How you respond to this group of people is going to define our future, the future of your relationship with me as well as ‘Them’, as you so often refer to my friends and fellow spiritual seekers. Straight people are leaving the Church because the tension you’re asking us to hold is untenable. We must live out our words.
But I think I know something you don’t. I’m The Generation. We’re all just in it together, one generation defined by being together and alive now.
Disrupt the conventions
I’m tired of hearing about the ‘Next Generation’. Did I slip straight from the ‘next generation’ where I was ‘full of potential’ to being past my use-by date in my thirties? You just don’t look at me the same anymore. I can’t seem to hold your interest.
But I think I know something you don’t. I’m The Generation. We’re all just in it together, one generation defined by being together and alive now. Young people aren’t any more likely to bring about hope than older people. We are all as close as each other to the grave, because life changes in a moment.
Disrupt the conventions and assumptions. I’m not suggesting you need to give up your hope for the cool kids, those twenty-somethings you’re so pleased to have held on to, but every denomination I’ve encountered is trying to engage with the ‘next’ generation while pacifying the baby-boomers who are still largely paying the bills.
Defining the relationship
When I try and talk this through, you say ‘you don’t want it to be over’ and that I need you, as much as you need me. I have to disagree. I carry Church in my pocket. My smartphone is all I need to read the Bible, download teaching, listen to worship tracks and even journal my prayers. I can tithe to Christ-centered causes and I can ‘fellowship’ in community via Facebook, Twitter, blogs and text messages. I can Skype and Facetime to pray with people I care about and sometimes, church happens around my kitchen table or fireplace. It happens Monday–Sunday.
I don’t know where we go from here. It’s not an ultimatum; it’s just a chance for us to be honest with each other. Maybe we’re both stuck, not knowing how to be what we need from each other. Where should we go from here?
Originally published for Christian Today.
by tashmcgill | Mar 2, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership
There is no such thing as broken, not when it comes to human beings.
It’s a lie. The logic follows that if a man or woman can be broken or have brokenness, then a man or woman might also obtain ‘perfection’. I am determined to rid us of this language that separates our humanity and divinity in such a way.
I have no desire for an overly virtuous piety. I want wholeness; a kind of rugged holiness that is my body, mind and soul integrated. The darkness and the light of me, entwined together. Piety alone cannot give me freedom, it can not bring me home to myself. If I fall and scrape my knee, if my blood spills on the earth – I heal, but I am not left unmarked. The scar is evidence itself of that which is wounded and that which is whole being woven together through the act of living.
Wholeness is not the opposite of brokenness. Wholeness is accepting myself, both good and bad. Accepting the divinity and humanity within me. No man is wholly good, but he might find his true self in accepting what is shadow and what is glorious. Accepting your true self perhaps the largest obstacle to embracing and living/being the person you dream (or have not yet dreamed of being) with real freedom. Whether that is making money, developing the third world, pursuing art – whatever it is that is within you; you were made to impact the world. More of us than we like to think, were made to spend our energies in the pursuit of bringing others and whole communities to wholeness.
Living defined by your rights and wrongs is a flawed and fractured mirror of who you are. If we see others through that same lens, our lens is the only broken thing. An object can be broken; a person cannot. My friend Greg works in a church and he would call it ‘living defined by your sin’.
To be ‘fixed’ or ‘unbroken’ is as much of a lie as it is to believe you are broken. Wounded, perhaps. Scarred, likely. There is only to be yourself or to be some other version of yourself. This is crucial identity work – the process of becoming; wholeness. Where what is graceful, clumsy, beautiful, ugly, brave, cowardly, truthful, deceitful, wise, foolish and fragile is woven together into a single, true being.
Every wound is an opportunity to dig deeper into the darkness and light within you. The damages we do, the things we suffer, the furies we endure and the passions that push and pursue us. This mosaic of contrasts battling and dancing within each of us, that is the truest self. Fragments of light and hope, pieces of darkness and shadow – this work of coming home to myself and all that I am, is the most important task.
I’ll tell you why. It is too easy to live in this world by category of right and wrong. When we do that to ourselves and we do it to each other; we step so easily into a warped view of justice. Justice becomes blurred into self-focus. We become criminals or victims, instead of both. We categorize ourselves and one another; this one is good, this one is bad.
We make our worlds smaller by defining each other within such small boundaries. We limit God and the universe with concrete lines. We crush the imagination of what might be and we take our eyes off the true prize, which is to live as our true selves.
Some of us are afraid of our true selves, because we categorize so ruthlessly into right and wrong. Ambition might be always considered selfish by those who work for charity, while poverty for the sake of development might be seen as irresponsible or wrong by those who hold self-sufficiency as a virtue. So we try again, to get it right. Few of us are so confident to live completely as ourselves, lest we be called Narcissist. The world is rarely blessed with those who walk completely in their own skin.
We relinquish our creative power, becoming obsessed with doing what is right. In our desire to be perfect, to be right, to be good (or to be sinless) we take our eyes off the bigger creative work in the Universe. There is no hero in fairytale or real life that does not bear some shadow or flaw. We are unconvincing humans without them.
Whatever good you can and will accomplish in your life, will occur in the company of your demons too. You cannot eradicate yourself of much, but in the pursuit of your true self, more of your light will come to the surface than you realise.
If only people would give as much energy, thought and love to their gifts (the true self) and the work of their hands today; as they gave to pursuing perfection yesterday in order to begin tomorrow.
If you cannot look at the moon and see how she leans into the darkness each night, you do not yet understand how important the weaving, the juxtaposition of light and dark truly is.
Seek yourself out, so that you might see the creative force of the Universe, the Creator at work. If you will simply look, it will not take you long to become acquainted with that self. Then you can continue with the important work; that of Being.
The poet Rumi captured it well here; the process of coming home to yourself;
“For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely,
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come —
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You were born from the rays of God’s Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you decieve Us with this outer show?
O friend, We can see the truth in your eyes!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
After one moment with that glorious Friend
you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic.
Your eyes were sweet and full of fire.
Come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Shams-e Tabriz, the King of the Tavern
has handed you an eternal cup,
And God in all His glory is pouring the wine.
So come! Drink!
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Soul of all souls, life of all life – you are That.
Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving – you are That.
The road that leads to the City is endless;
Go without head and feet
and you’ll already be there.
What else could you be? – you are That.”
by tashmcgill | Jan 9, 2015 | Leadership, Strategy
My ambition and my ability are not often in alignment. One exists in my present reality and one is beckoning to me from the future. Thankfully, I can change my present to get to the future.
Ambition is like a call. An innate sense of who and what I am or intend to be. It’s as much part of my blood and mindset as my DNA markers. What I desire or imagine becoming is vital to my sense of purpose and identity. So I don’t work on changing my ambition but I can improve my ability to achieve those ambitions.
Everything between where my current ability sits and what is required to achieve my ambition is simply the process of Becoming. Becoming the person who can achieve it. Simple.
Becoming is the most important task in all of this and yes, it can be the most daunting. The trouble is that we expect to find a straight forward process and follow a set pattern. We’re just not wired that way – unique and individual, we can learn from the becoming process of others, but we each need to follow our own journey. So here are a few tips on where to begin.
- Accept that true growth isn’t linear. Growing of any nature doesn’t happen at a slow, steady pace. It’s really not like working at a university degree, pace by pace as you go. Much like through childhood, growth comes in fits and starts, sometimes taking the long way round and other times shooting up fast as an arrow. You have to grow towards your ambition and it won’t likely be a straight line path. Get into a learning posture and accept that there will be curve balls along the way. The attitude you take towards personal growth is as important as the growing.
- Understand the difference between your goals and your overall ambition. We confuse ambition and goals all the time. A goal is something we want to do, an ambition is much closer to the person we want to be. My ambition is to become someone who helps people think well. If we change the way that people think about themselves, their relationships and our communities. I believe that when we change the way we think and approach problems, we can make more significant change to our world. My goal is to be a great communicator. There’s a difference here, between the what, who and the how.
- Embrace your ambition. In some parts of the world (New Zealand for example) we are intimidated by ambition. Our increasingly egalitarian view of the world struggles to separate an ambition from a desire for personal gain. It’s the stereotypical characteristics of ambition that we dislike – ideas that an ambitious person will be self-seeking, ruthless, untrustworthy in a team, always looking for opportunities to improve their position, climb further up the ladder. In other parts of the world, the attitude towards ambition is more positive. Ambition is a driving force that people can gather and collaborate around. Those who are ambitious are encouraged in their ‘Becoming’. Embrace the future-forward focus ambition gives you and surround yourself with people who can embrace it also.
- Pursue Self-Awareness. Do everything you can to learn about yourself, what you’re good at and strategies for improving and increasing your ability. Look for opportunities to learn what you do not know by keeping a close watch on the skills and talents of those you interact with. Surround yourself with people who have different and diverse skills from you. Learn from them – learn how they learn, how they teach, how they interact. Adapt, adopt and incorporate anything useful that fits your natural style. Understand your natural operating strengths by reading and practising.
- Use these practical tools for developing self-awareness:
Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator.
Clifton StrengthsFinder.
Use the Johari Window exercise to get a sense of how you perceive yourself alongside how others perceive you. Engage with the unknown and the alignment gaps you discover.
- Behave as if you already have the ability to match your ambition. The other word for this is ‘Practice’. This is not free-for-all permission to become arrogant and over-confident but if your ambition is to be someone who teaches and educates, begin teaching as you go. If your ambition is to be a great team builder, start building teams. You’ll likely fail. That’s a vital part of the growing process. You won’t become a great novelist by publishing a book, you have to practice writing and character development first. So practice, whatever it is you hope to become on a daily basis.
by tashmcgill | Jan 3, 2015 | Community, Leadership, Youth Work
I have this running joke with a couple of teenagers I work with. They are daughters of dear friends of mine but also in my youth work circles. Sometimes they come and hang out on the weekends because we’re doing youthwork-y things and sometimes just because I’m offering caregiver duties to parents stretched thin. Either way, we joke fondly about my role as a Weekend Mom.
These girls, and so many others that I am lucky enough to spend time with have become my ‘kids’. It’s a term of endearment for me, although other youthworkers I respect dislike the terminology. I get that, I really do but there are some young people who transcend my ‘regularly scheduled youth work’ relationships and become part of the fabric of life.
What It Heals In Us.
Often, I will tell my friends how grateful I am for the opportunity to express something of a communal motherhood in the role they let me play in their children’s lives. It is a gift to be trusted to walk alongside young people, particularly when they are the children of other wise, gracious and experienced youthworkers and teachers! I get to play mom when parents go away or even take them on holiday with me. We share in one another’s lives, even birthday parties and school events.
“The first third of your life is about learning, the next third is earning and the last third of your life is about returning.”
A wise friend shared this saying with me many years ago. I’ve learned the parts are not chronological. We never finish learning, therefore are constantly earning and we ought to, as soon as we have anything of worth, start to return investment back into our communities. So it heals something in all of us (the question of self-worth) when we discover we have something worth returning, worth giving back.
It’s what keeps me coming back to youthwork and investing in people, over and over again.
The Gift Of Being A Youthworker In Your 30s.
By the time you’re doing youthwork in your 30s, things are probably (hopefully?) a little different to when you were at college or barely out of school yourself. It’s slightly different too, if you are single. You have capacity, a different set of resources to invest as well as a few more freedoms than others may have. The other great thing about being a youthworker in your 30s, are the young people who have graduated and become friends. They offer plenty of input as to what was helpful to them and not so.
1. Experience counts for something.
I don’t believe that the longer you are around, the better youthworker you are. Being a good youthworker has to do with learning, practicing, listening and being committed to developing your leadership and skills. A graduating youth worker can be just as impactful as a long-timer, but likely in very different ways than a youthworker who has invested years in learning about adolescent development and the challenges that young people face.
For starters, hopefully you’ve had the chance to read, converse and grasp hold of learning opportunities when they come your way. I’ve been lucky enough to find a few mentors (and friends) who have expanded my practice, my understanding and my abilities.
2. Youthwork is an intentional lifestyle choice.
Lots of young adults get involved in youth work because it’s an opportunity to meet and work alongside other young adults. It’s also something of a common practice for young adults who have grown up in youth groups to graduate and work within those youth groups too. When you’re in your late 20s and 30s, regardless of whether you are a fulltime youthworker or a volunteer, youthwork has become an intentional lifestyle choice. You already know the cost of weekends, evenings, extra gas mileage and the impact on your social life and family. There’s likely to be more of a gap between your personal life and your youthwork than there was when you were younger, probably more consideration of balance between the two as well.
3. Resource is probably a little easier to come by.
Having a group of teenage girls over on a weekend afternoon is a lot easier now that I’m older, live with fewer people and run my household. I have space that I can easily make available to young people, young adults and other youth workers to meet, spend time, eat and generally feel at home. A big part of my Weekend Mom routine comes from the reality of welcoming young people into my home. They come and eat, make food, laze about on the couch and know the Wi-Fi password. Extra gas money, a few extra dollars for snacks and activities are all far easier to come by now. It’s no big deal to take them camping for a weekend, when I used to spend enormous amounts of time budgeting for such days.
4. Your role can be Mentor/Friend/Aunty/Mom.
It’s challenging for a twenty year old to play more than one or two roles as youthworker. Even as a twenty five year old, there’s still so much learning about your own ideas of being friend, mentor, caregiver to be done and rarely can you step into the wisdom and security of a parenting role. Mentorship changes over time. It can be instructional, simply learning how to be in certain ways. It can be a devoted do-as-I-do discipline. Or it can be more ancient – the practice of encouraging someone in how to think their way through problems and questions. The joy of being a Weekend Mom, as well as youthworker, mentor and friend – is the way those questions come about.
5. You know when to stay calm and when to escalate.
We all know that not every youthful crisis is actually a crisis. But you have to learn to read the signs carefully, because the younger you are the closer to those same heightened emotions and new experiences you are. That’s potentially controversial, but I find it anecdotally to be true. What seemed overwhelming as a twenty-something youthworker feels very approachable and manageable today.
Something We Should Always Do.
That’s it – the gift of being able to return something from how we are constantly learning and then what we earn. It’s not just money, but wisdom, experience and the capacity for grace and generosity. We should be returning it back into people as soon as we grasp hold of it. So I think, that after years of wondering and questioning if I am done with youthwork and years of trying to figure out how to do it well – I’ve settled on it. There are young people and families who have chosen me as their youthworker and at times, a Weekend Mom. What a joy, what a healing experience – that I’ve grown into someone who has something to offer beyond my youthful exuberance.
by tashmcgill | Dec 21, 2014 | Health, Leadership, Mind, Strategy, Youth Work
In a world driven by being the best, it takes a hell of a lot of resilience to be second. To be second best, but not give up. To be second in command, advising on big decisions but not aim for the top rung. To be the backing vocalist, never sing the lead and still sing, anyway.
The Importance Of Being Second
Business leaders talk often about the power of cohesive and supportive relationship between a Number One and a Number Two. Just the other day, I had this conversation with a Managing Director who talked about the value of his Number Two. Cohesive, supportive and encouraging relationships that are also commercially successful require shared mutual outlook, mutual benefit and a clear understanding of mutual strength and weakness. Both have unique responsibilities required for wise decision-making and management. Very few great leaders exist without one or many Number Twos. We make critical errors if we forget that Number Ones need Number Twos, or that Number Twos are as important as Number Ones.
I’ve had a chance to be a Number Two several times. They have been enriching, rewarding experiences and once, it was harrowing and soul-destroying. It’s not just how you think of yourself, or how a Number One thinks of you – but it’s also how the World perceives the value of the Kingmaker, versus the King. Yet, kingmakers are sought after by the wisest of those in positions of power. These leaders who surround themselves with other talented people empower and enjoy the success of the cohesive whole.
But how do you become a great Second?
I remember being 20 years old and driving home from a band practice with a girlfriend. It had been a particularly rough session where I wasn’t on top of my game. I asked her, being a musician and vocalist I really respected, if she thought I was actually talented at all. She said bravely, ‘Well, I think you’re good at what you do but you’ll never record an album or anything.’
Fifteen years later and I remember it clearly – the crisp smell of a cold Spring night creeping into the car and trying not to let the pain show. If I’d had a dream to record any songs of my own, it was stripped in that moment and took years to return. It’s the same feeling I had when I missed out on creative writing awards at school. Always good, but never the best – therefore unrecognized and out of mind.
The thing is, I didn’t want to be better than anybody else, I just wanted to be myself. But we see people and ourselves through the lens of talent competitions that determine talent and ability in ever decreasing circles, competing against one another instead of ourselves.
It takes a lot of resilience to live as second, without being to feel ‘not good enough’. To live as Second is not Second-Best. Second is a role, second is a position that has it’s own unique requirements. It’s not a judgement. The self-awareness required to understand yourself and your ability to be confident in your own talent is typically not nurtured early in our development, rather left to emerge as a result of character-building experiences. Those experiences might teach you your place in the natural order of things, but they don’t always result in a stronger sense of your own voice.
It takes a lot of courage to accept that success is not a pre-determined set of factors. In the same way we must do the work of establishing our unique voice, we must also define success in ways that are meaningful to us.
The challenge of our schooling structures is a substantial focus on identifying what students are best at by means of defining possible vocational choices. Rather than honing and developing ways for young people to establish expressions of their own talent and voice, we throw them into ranking examinations, grading and fierce competition often before we’ve helped them do the work of identity formation.
The more competitive your work environment, the harder it will be to do the work required to establish strong, healthy identity. People love stars, as long as they are delivering big wins. To be good at anything requires a consistent effort in a series of habits that are grounded in your unique talents. You might call this finding your voice.
Why is it so hard?
Because our culture does not understand what talent really is. It confuses talent with being the best of many versus being the best of one. On who can beat out the competition. Embracing your talent and your unique identity is embracing the strength to be second to some or even many but to be entirely yourself.
To know your voice and speak out loud, clearly. Philosophers have expressed this as ‘Know Thyself’. But we need to find spaces to do this work without a cultural demand for competition and a hierarchy of winners overtaking.
So become resiliant. Become sure of your voice, become sure of yourself and what you are capable of achieving from any position.
Second Is Not For Always.
There are some who thrive as Second, forming unique partnerships that deliver success in an ongoing way. But Second is not for always – as with so many things, position is a strategic choice. A healthy Number One/Number Two relationship might thrive and provide deep satisfaction commercially and in life but there may be times where you choose to take on a different kind of role. The resilience to be Number Two, alongside a constructive awareness of the different requirements gives you ample fuel to adapt and achieve in a variety of different roles.
Practical Advice:
- Get to grips with your unique abilities and strengths. Be sure of what you are really competent in.
- Practice working in teams and learn how you do that best.
- Find a great partner or Number One. Someone you have great chemistry with, trust and who increases your capability and influence. Someone who has different strengths than you.
- Define your strategy and goals – both achieving professional success by working together and supplementing the abilities of the other. Identify a goal you want to achieve.
- Work hard on a variety of projects and challenges, even side projects to flex your ability to support, encourage and enhance the capability of your twosome team.
- Check your ego on a regular basis – critical self-assessment, let your teammate observe and give constructive feedback and vice versa. Analyse and look for ways to improve your team communciation and outputs.
- Read and gather insights on personal development, leadership and strategy. Discuss with your teammate regularly. I’d suggest subscribing here for regular short bursts on the subject.
As someone who works with people in a leadership role, I am convinced that our job should be refinement of talent, not establishing talent. Those who encourage and lead others should give significant portions of their time and effort to helping people find their voice and unique expression. Our investment in people’s voice should be a commitment to fostering identity formation and growth. In giving people the resilience, confidence and self-awareness to be Second.
